How many computer towers can you break down in a 10 hr day

Im curious if you had a un limited supply of just towers how many could you dismantle and separating the parts coming back to the hard drives and dvd and power-supplies later

how long does it take you to do one?

there isn't much to it, take off the sides, undo maybe 15 screws, pull a few wires and it's done.
so 5 minutes each maybe, 12 an hour, 120 a day.

i'll say 120

Originally Posted by scrapperben

how long does it take you to do one?

There isn't much to it, take off the sides, undo maybe 15 screws, pull a few wires and it's done.
So 5 minutes each maybe, 12 an hour, 120 a day.

I'll say 120

i can do around 110-115 doesn't matter what kind they are just wanted to see where how i compare to others i think we are all about the same on time frame thanks for your reply

ok well, for my very, small time operation, just the thought of unlimited towers to break down , gives me goose bumps. Lol.

As for the hypothetical (sp) question.

Ok for starters i break the whole tower down further than I see some people describe as their normal way of doing it. However, as I understand it, you said to leave out all of the extra things and just take the motherboard, ram, cpu (including fan and heatsink if present and possibly taking metal off of rambus), and pulling the wires and finger cards.

Just to take those items plus the cover ofcourse and I assume leaving the power supply wires on it. I could probably work my way to 8 to 10 minutes each with just ordinary hand tools. And with one little upgrade (power drill with full set of the 6" security bits) I could probably get good enough to do it all in 5 minutes, maybe 4 minutes if they were all the same. Those times would probably just be the initial removal from the tower it's self. If you are adding sorting those parts also, I would have to add more time, because i break down a few of those a little bit more even after I pull them. What can I say other than I am just slow, ha ha.

Yeah an unlimited supply of just complete towers just two days a week would make me VERY happy.

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

My limit per day is around 50 and that is pushing it......The other day I did 40 but they were missing alot of parts..........Anyway there are only so many I can do in a day until I get extremely bored or tired with them and have to do something else

and dont forget all the breaks for coffee, cigs and angry birds! (in my case it diet coke, choc chip granola bars and temple run :P)

as the days pass though, I think you'd start to get rsi or something by repeating the same movements over and over.
definitely would need different things to do in between.

personally I wouldn't do any more then 10 in any given day, if I had to do 120 a day I think i'd be doing something else.
I like to savour the moment, removing the motherboard, the big heat sink and fan, hoping it's a nice one with pipes coming out or a chunk of copper in it, cleaning it up, looking at it, even hard drives I like to look at, read the size, the year and basically just holding them in my hand, I feel kinda powerful.
the cd drives I open up at the time too, a quick board removal procedure and it's done.
I also clean up the cards of those steel plates, remove the casing from the power supply and cut the ends off ribbon cables.
so this all takes me maybe 30 minutes or so, glad I don't have rent to pay.

If I have several to take down, I sort them into like kinds first. The standard Gateway, Compaq, HP, etc that have all Phillips screws, I can average 3 minutes. Dell clamshells like Optiplex have mostly slide locks or levers and if I am on my game I can get those in 2 1/2 minutes. The ones that have #15 Torx take me 4 minutes because I don't have a bit and have to go manual. The old ones like 486 IBM machines take a little longer because I have to check each time to see what tools I need and how everything comes apart. Same thing for smaller Emachines. Older Apple....GRRRRR. Some are a beast and take forever, over ten minutes, but they do reward me with a nice ceramic Motorola chip. Those iMac all in ones and IBM dumb terminals almost 30 minutes. I'd say if I were going to sort them and do the easy ones first, I could get close to 20 per hour for a little while. No way I could hold that pace for long though and you won't get all easy ones. Actual numbers, the most I've done in one streak is 33 and it took just over two hours.

Wake up at 5AM. Drink a pot of coffee. They seem to take themselves apart

Besides breakdown time also consider the time it takes to A. Pick them up. B. Carry them to your workstation.C. reload the shells for scrap. D. Package up the boards/parts for selling.E. fuel/ shipping costs.

Perhaps another title headline reading how to keep good books would be more appropriate. Unless everyone enjoys fooling themselves...

Haven't timed myself but I'd say I can do one in 3 to 6 minutes.

Btw, on some of those heat sinks with the copper tubes coming out, the bottom is a copper plate. It may look aluminum but scratch it to see. I use a torch to heat it up and pop it out. Also have used an air chisel.

Originally Posted by Russell

Besides breakdown time also consider the time it takes to A. Pick them up. B. Carry them to your workstation.C. reload the shells for scrap. D. Package up the boards/parts for selling.E. fuel/ shipping costs.

Perhaps another title headline reading how to keep good books would be more appropriate. Unless everyone enjoys fooling themselves...

VERY good point. I'm in the process of picking through a 1/3 full gaylord of PCB's of all types that i bought this morning. Calculating all time & expenses to see how it all works out. Volume is the best ally i have right now.

I've done 83 complete towers into their appropriate boxes, picked clean, fingers trimmed and packed down to ship in 6.5 hours....minus the tower cases, I call a heavy metal scrapper friend to get those

I have timed myself on a few occasion. To get a base line for my employee. My best time was on a dell witch only need 4 screws removed. It was less than 40 seconds on average. I did 10 in just over 7 minutes.
On the other side. Some of the older computers are a real pain and can take upwards of 10 minutes each. If i am calculating labor. I figure between 6-9 minutes each minimum. As i may have taken them apart in 40sec but i had a large pile of empty towers. And crates of boards that need to be replaced with new empty ones.

My employees can do 350 per 8 hour pay.

i guess i spend a little more time than most people, but i usually take 20-30 min per tower. that includes the time to break down hard drives(i know),the power supplies(i have more time than $$),cut ends off cords,clean heat sinks,and sort.I am gonna get called crazy for this, but i also put them back together(after filling them with random bits of shred) to make them easier to stack and load.